This first episode looks at at how Florence Nightingale revolutionised nursing for ever, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, Harriet Tubman freed slaves, Isambard Kingdom Brunel tunnelled through Box Hill to build the Great Western Railway and Mary Anning discovered the first ichthyosaur fossil.

The second episode looks at Grace Darling's life in a lighthouse and the night she saved nine lives. It shows how Edward Jenner discovered a vaccine against smallpox and follows Rosa Parks as she refuses to give up her seat on a bus and inspires a movement towards justice and equality. It also follows Dr Thomas Barnardo as he sets up a home for street children and watches Elizabeth Fry change the lives of prisoners at Newgate.